I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July weekend. I celebrated by placing 42,430th in the Peachtree Road Race.

Andrew McCutchen is an All-Star caliber player whether he was selected for the team or not. Typically (but not always) these type of snubs have been made moot due to injury replacements, so I’ll wait for a few days before I get in a huff about it.

The most disappointing thing from the weekend to me is that the Bucs could have pretty easily swept the Nats and been in 1st place now. Though I will happily accept being three games over .500 and 1.5 games back.

The Pirates are starting to get some real attention now, not just for single players like Charlie Morton but the team as a whole. To that end, I present…

Some Links:

Joe Posnanski with his usual excellent take; this time griping and the McCutchen McSnub.

Christina Kahrl from ESPN.com’s Sweetspot blog on the strides the Pirates have made this year.

Fangraph’s Dave Cameron posits that the Pirates should be buyers at the trade deadline this year. I can’t find a single thing in this article to argue with.